I had known him for a painter of renown--a master of his art, whose
pictures, which sold for high prices, adorned museums, the parlors of
the rich, and, when on exhibition, were hung low and conspicuous. Also,
I knew him for an expert photographer--an "art photographer," as they
say, one who dealt with this branch of industry as a fad, an amusement,
and who produced pictures that in composition, lights, and shades
rivaled his productions with the brush.
His cameras were the best that the market could supply, yet he was
able, from his knowledge of optics and chemistry, to improve them for
his own uses far beyond the ability of the makers. His studio was
filled with examples of his work, and his mind was stocked with
information and opinions on all subjects ranging from international
policies to the servant-girl problem.
He was a man of the world, gentlemanly and successful, about sixty
years old, kindly and gracious of manner, and out of this kindliness
and graciousness had granted me the compliment of his friendship, and
access to his studio whenever I felt like calling upon him.
Yet it never occurred to me that the wonderful and technically correct
marines hanging on his walls were due to anything but the artist's
conscientious study of his subject, and only his casual
mispronounciation of the word "leeward," which landsmen pronounce as
spelled, but which rolls off the tongue of a sailor, be he former dock
rat or naval officer, as "looward," and his giving the long sounds to
the vowels of the words "patent" and "tackle," that induced me to ask
if he had ever been to sea.
"Why, yes," he answered. "Until I was thirty I had no higher ambition
than to become a skipper of some craft; but I never achieved it. The
best I did was to sign first mate for one voyage--and that one was my
last. It was on that voyage that I learned something of the mysterious
properties of light, and it made me a photographer, then an artist. You
are wrong when you say that a searchlight cannot penetrate fog."
"But it has been tried," I remonstrated.
"With ordinary light. Yes, of course, subject to refraction, reflection,
and absorption by the millions of minute globules of water it encounters."
We had been discussing the wreck of the _Titanic_, the most terrible
marine disaster of history, the blunders of construction and
management, and the later proposed improvements as to the lowering of
boats and the location of ice in a fog.
Among these considerations was also the plan of carrying a powerful
searchlight whose beam would illumine the path of a twenty-knot liner
and render objects visible in time to avoid them. In regard to this I
had contended that a searchlight could not penetrate fog, and if it
could, would do as much harm as good by blinding and confusing the
watch officers and lookouts on other craft.
"But what other kind of light can be used?" I asked, in answer to his
mention of ordinary light.
"Invisible light," he answered. "I do not mean the Roentgen ray, nor the
emanation from radium, both of which are invisible, but neither of
which is light, in that neither can be reflected nor refracted. Both
will penetrate many different kinds of matter, but it needs reflection
or refraction to make visible an object on which it impinges.
Understand?"
"Hardly," I answered dubiously. "What kind of visible light is there,
if not radium or the Roentgen ray? You can photograph with either, can't
you?"
"Yes, but to see what you have photographed you must develop the film.
And there is no time for that aboard a fast steamer running through the
ice and the fog. No, it is mere theory, but I have an idea that the
ultraviolet light--the actinic rays beyond the violet end of the
spectrum, you know--will penetrate fog to a great distance, and in
spite of its higher refractive power, which would distort and magnify
an object, it is better than nothing."
"But what makes you think that it will penetrate fog?" I queried. "And
if it is invisible itself, how will it illumine an object?"
"As to your first question," he answered, with a smile, "it is well
known to surgeons that ultraviolet light will penetrate the human body
to the depth of an inch, while the visible rays are reflected at the
surface. And it has been known to photographers for fifty years that
this light--easily isolated by dispersion through prisms--will act on a
sensitized plate in an utterly dark room."
"Granted," I said. "But how about the second question? How can you see
by this light?"
"There you have me," he answered. "It will need a quicker development
than any now known to photography--a traveling film, for instance, that
will show the picture of an iceberg or a ship before it is too late to
avoid it--a traveling film sensitized by a quicker acting chemical than
any now used."
"Why not puzzle it out?" I asked. "It would be a wonderful invention."
"I am too old," he answered dreamily. "My life work is about done. But
other and younger men will take it up. We have made great strides in
optics. The moving picture is a fact. Colored photographs are possible.
The ultraviolet microscope shows us objects hitherto invisible because
smaller than the wave length of visible light. We shall ultimately use
this light to see through opaque objects. We shall see colors never
imagined by the human mind, but which have existed since the beginning
of light.
"We shall see new hues in the sunset, in the rainbow, in the flowers
and foliage of forest and field. We may possibly see creatures in the
air above never seen before.
"We shall certainly see creatures from the depths of the sea, where
visible light cannot reach--creatures whose substance is of such a
nature that it will not respond to the light it has never been exposed
to--a substance which is absolutely transparent because it will not
absorb, and appear black; will not reflect, and show a color of some
kind; and will not refract, and distort objects seen through it."
"What!" I exclaimed. "Do you think there are invisible creatures?"
He looked gravely at me for a moment, then said: "You know that there
are sounds that are inaudible to the human ear because of their too
rapid vibration, others that are audible to some, but not to all. There
are men who cannot hear the chirp of a cricket, the tweet of a bird, or
the creaking of a wagon wheel.
"You know that there are electric currents much stronger in voltage
than is necessary to kill us, but of wave frequency so rapid that the
human tissue will not respond, and we can receive such currents without
a shock. And _I know_"--he spoke with vehemence--"that there are
creatures in the deep sea of color invisible to the human eye, for I
have not only felt such a creature, but seen its photograph taken by
the ultraviolet light."
"Tell me," I asked breathlessly. "Creatures solid, but invisible?"
"Creatures solid, and invisible because absolutely transparent. It is
long since I have told the yarn. People would not believe me, and it
was so horrible an experience that I have tried to forget it. However,
if you care for it, and are willing to lose your sleep to-night, I'll
give it to you."
He reached for a pipe, filled it, and began to smoke; and as he smoked
and talked, some of the glamor and polish of the successful artist and
clubman left him. He was an old sailor, spinning a yarn.
"It was about thirty years ago," he began, "or, to be explicit,
twenty-nine years this coming August, at the time of the great Java
earthquake. You've heard of it--how it killed seventy thousand people,
thirty thousand of whom were drowned by the tidal wave.
"It was a curious phenomenon; Krakatoa Island, a huge conical mountain
rising from the bottom of Sunda Strait, went out of existence, while in
Java a mountain chain was leveled, and up from the bowels of the earth
came an iceberg--as you might call it--that floated a hundred miles on
a stream of molten lava before melting.
"I was not there; I was two hundred miles to the sou'west, first mate
of one of those old-fashioned, soft-pine, centerboard barkentines--three
sticks the same length, you know--with the mainmast stepped on the port
side of the keel to make room for the centerboard--a craft that would
neither stay, nor wear, nor scud, nor heave to, like a decent vessel.
"But she had several advantages; she was new, and well painted, deck,
top-sides, and bottom. Hence her light timbers and planking were not
water-soaked. She was fastened with 'trunnels,' not spikes and bolts,
and hemp rigged.
"Perhaps there was not a hundredweight of iron aboard of her, while her
hemp rigging, though heavier than water, was lighter than wire rope,
and so, when we were hit by the back wash of that tidal wave, we did
not sink, even though butts were started from one end to the other of
the flimsy hull, and all hatches were ripped off.
"I have called it the back wash, yet we may have had a tidal wave of
our own; for, though we had no knowledge of the frightful catastrophe
at Java, still there had been for days several submarine earthquakes
all about us, sending fountains of water, steam bubbles, and mud from
the sea bed into the air.
"As the soundings were over two thousand fathoms in that neighborhood,
you can imagine the seismic forces at work beneath us. There had been
no wind for days, and no sea, except the agitation caused by the
upheavals. The sky was a dull mud color, and the sun looked like
nothing but a dark, red ball, rising day by day in the east, to move
overhead and set in the west. The air was hot, sultry, and stifling,
and I had difficulty in keeping the men--a big crew--at work.
"The conditions would try anybody's temper, and I had my own troubles.
There was a passenger on board, a big, fat, highly educated German--a
scientist and explorer--whom we had taken aboard at some little town on
the West Australian coast, and who was to leave us at Batavia, where he
could catch a steamer for Germany.
"He had a whole laboratory with him, with scientific instruments that I
didn't know the names of, with maps he had made, stuffed beasts and
birds he had killed, and a few live ones which he kept in cages and
attended to himself in the empty hold; for we were flying light, you
know, without even ballast aboard, and bound to Batavia for a cargo.
"It was after a few eruptions from the bottom of the sea that he got to
be a nuisance; he was keenly interested in the strange dead fish and
nondescript creatures that had been thrown up. He declared them new,
unknown to science, and wore out my patience with entreaties to haul
them aboard for examination and classification.
"I obliged him for a time, until the decks stank with dead fish, and
the men got mutinous. Then I refused to advance the interests of
science any farther, and, in spite of his excitement and pleadings,
refused to litter the decks any more. But he got all he wanted of the
unclassified and unknown before long.
"Tidal wave, you know, is a name we give to any big wave, and it has no
necessary connection with the tides. It may be the big third wave of a
series--just a little bigger than usual; it may be the ninth, tenth,
and eleventh waves merged into one huge comber by uneven wind pressure;
it may be the back wash from an earthquake that depresses the nearest
coast, and it may be--as I think it was in our case--a wave sent out by
an upheaval from the sea bed. At any rate, we got it, and we got it
just after a tremendous spouting of water and mud, and a thick cloud of
steam on the northern horizon.
"We saw a seeming rise to the horizon, as though caused by refraction,
but which soon eliminated refraction as a cause by its becoming visible
in its details--its streaks of water and mud, its irregular upper edge,
the occasional combers that appeared on this edge, and the terrific
speed of its approach. It was a wave, nothing else, and coming at forty
knots at least.
"There was little that we could do; there was no wind, and we headed
about west, showing our broadside; yet I got the men at the downhauls,
clewlines, and stripping lines of the lighter kites; but before a man
could leave the deck to furl, that moving mountain hit us, and buried
us on our beam ends just as I had time to sing out: 'Lash yourselves,
every man.'
"Then I needed to think of my own safety and passed a turn of the
mizzen gaff-topsail downhaul about me, belaying to a pin as the
cataclysm hit us. For the next two minutes--although it seemed an hour,
I did not speak, nor breathe, nor think, unless my instinctive grip on
the turns of the downhaul on the pin may have been an index of thought.
I was under water; there was roaring in my ears, pain in my lungs, and
terror in my heart.
"Then there came a lessening of the turmoil, a momentary quiet, and I
roused up, to find the craft floating on her side, about a third out of
water, but apt to turn bottom up at any moment from the weight of the
water-soaked gear and canvas, which will sink, you know, when wet.
"I was hanging in my bight of rope from a belaying pin, my feet clear
of the perpendicular deck, and my ears tortured by the sound of men
overboard crying for help--men who had not lashed themselves. Among
them I knew was the skipper, a mild-mannered little fellow, and the
second mate, an incompetent tough from Portsmouth, who had caused me
lots of trouble by his abuse of the men and his depending upon me to
stand by him.
"Nothing could be done for them; they were adrift on the back wall of a
moving mountain that towered thirty degrees above the horizon to port;
and another moving mountain, as big as the first, was coming on from
starboard--caused by the tumble into the sea of the uplifted water.
"Did you ever fall overboard in a full suit of clothes? If you did, you
know the mighty exercise of strength required to climb out. I was a
strong, healthy man at the time, but never in my life was I so tested.
I finally got a grip on the belaying pin and rested; then, with an
effort that caused me physical pain, I got my right foot up to the
pinrail and rested again; then, perhaps more by mental strength than
physical--for I loved life and wanted to live--I hooked my right foot
over the rail, reached higher on the rope, rested again, and finally
hove myself up to the mizzen rigging, where I sat for a few moments to
get my breath, and think, and look around.
"Forward, I saw men who had lashed themselves to the starboard rail,
and they were struggling, as I had struggled, to get up to the
horizontal side of the vessel. They succeeded, but at the time I had no
use for them. Sailors will obey orders, if they understand the orders,
but this was an exigency outside the realm of mere seamanship.
"Men were drowning off to port; men, like myself, were climbing up to
temporary safety afforded by the topsides of a craft on her beam ends;
and aft, in the alleyway, was the German professor, unlashed, but safe
and secure in his narrow confines, one leg through a cabin window, and
both hands gripping the rail, while he bellowed like a bull, not for
himself, however--but for his menagerie in the empty hold.
"There was small chance for the brutes--smaller than for ourselves,
left on the upper rail of an over-turned craft, and still smaller than
the chance of the poor devils off to port, some of whom had gripped the
half-submerged top-hamper, and were calling for help.
"We could not help them; she was a Yankee craft, and there was not a
life buoy or belt on board; and who, with another big wave coming,
would swim down to looward with a line?
"Landsmen, especially women and boys, have often asked me why a wooden
ship, filled with water, sinks, even though not weighted with cargo.
Some sailors have pondered over it, too, knowing that a small boat,
built of wood, and fastened with nails, will float if water-logged.
"But the answer is simple. Most big craft are built of oak or hard
pine, and fastened together with iron spikes and bolts--sixty tons at
least to a three-hundred-ton schooner. After a year or two this hard,
heavy wood becomes water-soaked, and, with the iron bolts and spikes,
is heavier than water, and will sink when the hold is flooded.
"This craft of ours was like a small boat--built of soft light wood,
with trunnels instead of bolts, and no iron on board except the anchors
and one capstan. As a result, though ripped, twisted, broken, and
disintegrated, she still floated even on her beam ends.
"But the soaked hemp rigging and canvas might be enough to drag the
craft down, and with this fear in my mind I acted quickly. Singing out
to the men to hang on, I made my way aft to where we had an ax, lodged
in its beckets on the after house. With this I attacked the mizzen
lanyards, cutting everything clear, then climbed forward to the main.
"Hard as I worked I had barely cut the last lanyard when that second
wave loomed up and crashed down on us. I just had time to slip into the
bight of a rope, and save myself; but I had to give up the ax; it
slipped from my hands and slid down to the port scuppers.
"That second wave, in its effect, was about the same as the first,
except that it righted the craft. We were buried, choked, and half
drowned; but when the wave had passed on, the main and mizzenmasts,
unsupported by the rigging that I had cut away, snapped cleanly about
three feet above the deck, and the broad, flat-bottomed craft
straightened up, lifting the weight of the foremast and its gear, and
lay on an even keel, with foresail, staysail, and jib set, the fore
gaff-topsail, flying jib, and jib-topsail clewed down and the wreck of
the masts bumping against the port side.
"We floated, but with the hold full of water, and four feet of it on
deck amidships that surged from one rail to the other as the craft
rolled, pouring over and coming back. All hatches were ripped off, and
our three boats were carried away from their chocks on the house.
"Six men were clearing themselves from their lashings at the fore
rigging, and three more, who had gone overboard with the first sea, and
had caught the upper gear to be lifted as the craft righted, were
coming down, while the professor still declaimed from the alley.
"'Hang on all,' I yelled; 'there's another sea coming.'
"It came, but passed over us without doing any more damage, and though
a fourth, fifth, and sixth followed, each was of lesser force than the
last, and finally it was safe to leave the rail and wade about, though
we still rolled rails under in what was left of the turmoil.
"Luckily, there was no wind, though I never understood why, for
earthquakes are usually accompanied by squalls. However, even with
wind, our canvas would have been no use to us; for, waterlogged as we
were, we couldn't have made a knot an hour, nor could we have steered,
even with all sail set. All we could hope for was the appearance of
some craft that would tow the ripped and shivered hull to port, or at
least take us off.
"So, while I searched for the ax, and the professor searched into the
depths under the main hatch for signs of his menagerie--all drowned,
surely--the remnant of the crew lowered the foresail and jibs, stowing
them as best they could.
"I found the ax, and found it just in time; for I was attacked by what
could have been nothing but a small-sized sea serpent, that had been
hove up to the surface and washed aboard us. It was only about six feet
long, but it had a mouth like a bulldog, and a row of spikes along its
back that could have sawed a man's leg off.
"I managed to kill it before it harmed me, and chucked it overboard
against the protests of the professor, who averred that I took no
interest in science.
"'No, I don't,' I said to him. 'I've other things to think of. And you,
too. You'd better go below and clean up your instruments, or you'll
find them ruined by salt water.'
"He looked sorrowfully and reproachfully at me, and started to wade
aft; but he halted at the forward companion, and turned, for a scream
of agony rang out from the forecastle deck, where the men were coming
in from the jibs, and I saw one of them writhing on his back,
apparently in a fit, while the others stood wonderingly around.
"The forecastle deck was just out of water, and there was no wash; but
in spite of this, the wriggling, screaming man slid head-first along
the break and plunged into the water on the main deck.
"I scrambled forward, still carrying the ax, and the men tumbled down
into the water after the man; but we could not get near him. We could
see him under water, feebly moving, but not swimming; and yet he shot
this way and that faster than a man ever swam; and once, as he passed
near me, I noticed a gaping wound in his neck, from which the blood was
flowing in a stream--a stream like a current, which did not mix with
the water and discolor it.
"Soon his movements ceased, and I waded toward him; but he shot swiftly
away from me, and I did not follow, for something cold, slimy, and firm
touched my hand--something in the water, but which I could not see.
"I floundered back, still holding the ax, and sang out to the men to
keep away from the dead man; for he was surely dead by now. He lay
close to the break of the topgallant forecastle, on the starboard side;
and as the men mustered around me I gave one my ax, told the rest to
secure others, and to chop away the useless wreck pounding our port
side--useless because it was past all seamanship to patch up that
basketlike hull, pump it out, and raise jury rigging.
"While they were doing it, I secured a long pike pole from its beckets,
and, joined by the professor, cautiously approached the body prodding
ahead of me.
"As I neared the dead man, the pike pole was suddenly torn from my
grasp, one end sank to the deck, while the other raised above the
water; then it slid upward, fell, and floated close to me. I seized it
again and turned to the professor.
"'What do you make of this, Herr Smidt?' I asked. 'There is something
down there that we cannot see--something that killed that man. See the
blood?'
"He peered closely at the dead man, who looked curiously distorted and
shrunken, four feet under water. But the blood no longer was a thin
stream issuing from his neck; it was gathered into a misshapen mass
about two feet away from his neck.
"'Nonsense,' he answered. 'Something alive which we cannot see is
contrary to all laws of physics. Der man must have fallen und hurt
himself, which accounts for der bleeding. Den he drowned in der water.
Do you see?--mine Gott! What iss?'
"He suddenly went under water himself, and dropping the pike pole, I
grabbed him by the collar and braced myself. Something was pulling him
away from me, but I managed to get his head out, and he spluttered:
"'Help! Holdt on to me. Something haf my right foot.'
"'Lend a hand here,' I yelled to the men, and a few joined me, grabbing
him by his clothing. Together we pulled against the invisible force,
and finally all of us went backward, professor and all, nearly to drown
ourselves before regaining our feet. Then, as the agitated water
smoothed, I distinctly saw the mass of red move slowly forward and
disappear in the darkness under the forecastle deck.
"'You were right, mine friend,' said the professor, who, in spite of
his experience, held his nerve. 'Dere is something invisible in der
water--something dangerous, something which violates all laws of
physics und optics. Oh, mine foot, how it hurts!'
"'Get aft,' I answered, 'and find out what ails it. And you fellows,' I
added to the men, 'keep away from the forecastle deck. Whatever it is,
it has gone under it.'
"Then I grabbed the pike pole again, cautiously hooked the barb into
the dead man's clothing, and, assisted by the men, pulled him aft to
the poop, where the professor had preceded, and was examining his
ankle. There was a big, red wale around it, in the middle of which was
a huge blood blister. He pricked it with his knife, then rearranged his
stocking and joined us as we lifted the body.
"'Great God, sir!' exclaimed big Bill, the bosun. 'Is that Frank? I
wouldn't know him.'
"Frank, the dead man, had been strong, robust, and full-blooded. But he
bore no resemblance to his living self. He lay there, shrunken,
shortened, and changed, a look of agony on his emaciated face, and his
hands clenched--not extended like those of one drowned.
"'I thought drowned men swelled up,' ventured one of the men.
"'He was not drowned,' said Herr Smidt. 'He was sucked dry, like a
lemon. Perhaps in his whole body there is not an ounce of blood, nor
lymph, nor fluid of any kind.'
"I secured an iron belaying pin, tucked it inside his shirt, and we
hove him overboard at once; for, in the presence of this horror, we
were not in the mood for a burial service. There we were, eleven men on
a water-logged hulk, adrift on a heaving, greasy sea, with a dark-red
sun showing through a muddy sky above, and an invisible _thing_ forward
that might seize any of us at any moment it chose, in the water or out;
for Frank had been caught and dragged down.
"Still, I ordered the men, cook, steward, and all, to remain on the
poop and--the galley being forward--to expect no hot meals, as we could
subsist for a time on the cold, canned food in the storeroom and
lazaret.
"Because of an early friction between the men and the second mate, the
mild-mannered and peace-loving skipper had forbidden the crew to wear
sheath knives; but in this exigency I overruled the edict. While the
professor went down into his flooded room to doctor his ankle and
attend to his instruments, I raided the slop chest, and armed every man
of us with a sheath knife and belt; for while we could not see the
creature, we could feel it--and a knife is better than a gun in a
hand-to-hand fight.
"Then we sat around, waiting, while the sky grew muddier, the sun
darker, and the northern horizon lighter with a reddish glow that was
better than the sun. It was the Java earthquake, but we did not know it
for a long time.
"Soon the professor appeared and announced that his instruments were in
good condition, and stowed high on shelves above the water.
"'I must resensitize my plates, however,' he said. 'Der salt water has
spoiled them; but mine camera merely needs to dry out; und mine
telescope, und mine static machine und Leyden jars--why, der water did
not touch them.'
"'Well,' I answered. 'That's all right. But what good are they in the
face of this emergency? Are you thinking of photographing anything
now?'
"'Perhaps. I haf been thinking some.'
"'Have you thought out what that creature is--forward, there?'
"'Partly. It is some creature thrown up from der bottom of der sea, und
washed on board by der wave. Light, like wave motion, ends at a certain
depth, you know; und we have over twelve thousand feet beneath us. At
that depth dere is absolute darkness, but we know that creatures live
down dere, und fight, und eat, und die.'
"'But what of it? Why can't we see that thing?'
"'Because, in der ages that haf passed in its evolution from der
original moneron, it has never been exposed to light--I mean visible
light, der light that contains der seven colors of der spectrum. Hence
it may not respond to der three properties of visible light--reflection,
which would give it a color of some kind; absorption, which would make
it appear black; or refraction, which, in der absence of der other two,
would distort things seen through it. For it would be transparent, you
know.'
"'But what can be done?' I asked helplessly, for I could not understand
at the time what he meant.
"'Nothing, except that der next man attacked must use his knife. If he
cannot see der creature, he can feel it. Und perhaps--I do not know
yet--perhaps, in a way, we may see it--its photograph.'
"I looked blankly at him, thinking he might have gone crazy, but he
continued.
"'You know,' he said, 'that objects too small to be seen by the
microscope, because smaller than der amplitude of der shortest wave of
visible light, can be seen when exposed to der ultraviolet light--der
dark light beyond der spectrum? Und you know that this light is what
acts der most in photography? That it exposes on a sensitized plate new
stars in der heavens invisible to der eye through the strongest
telescope?'
"'Don't know anything about it,' I answered. 'But if you can find a way
out of this scrape we're in, go ahead.'
"'I must think,' he said dreamily. 'I haf a rock-crystal lens which is
permeable to this light, und which I can place in mine camera. I must
have a concave mirror, not of glass, which is opaque to this light, but
of metal.'
"'What for?' I asked.
"'To throw der ultraviolet light on der beast. I can generate it with
mine static machine.'
"'How will one of our lantern reflectors do? They are of polished tin,
I think.'
"'Good! I can repolish one.'
"We had one deck lantern larger than usual, with a metallic reflector
that concentrated the light into a beam, much as do the present day
searchlights. This I procured from the lazaret, and he pronounced it
available. Then he disappeared, to tinker up his apparatus.
"Night came down, and I lighted three masthead lights, to hoist at the
fore to inform any passing craft that we were not under command; but,
as I would not send a man forward on that job, I went myself, carefully
feeling my way with the pike pole. Luckily, I escaped contact with the
creature, and returned to the poop, where we had a cold supper of
canned cabin stores.
"The top of the house was dry, but it was cold, especially so as we
were all drenched to the skin. The steward brought up all the blankets
there were in the cabin--for even a wet blanket is better than none at
all--but there were not enough to go around, and one man volunteered,
against my advice, to go forward and bring aft bedding from the
forecastle.
"He did not come back; we heard his yell, that finished with a gurgle;
but in that pitch black darkness, relieved only by the red glow from
the north, not one of us dared to venture to his rescue. We knew that
he would be dead, anyhow, before we could get to him; so we stood
watch, sharing the blankets we had when our time came to sleep.
"It was a wretched night that we spent on the top of that after house.
It began to rain before midnight, the heavy drops coming down almost in
solid waves; then came wind, out of the south, cold and biting, with
real waves, that rolled even over the house, forcing us to lash
ourselves. The red glow to the north was hidden by the rain and spume,
and, to add to our discomfort, we were showered with ashes, which, even
though the surface wind was from the south, must have been brought from
the north by an upper air current.
"We did not find the dead man when the faint daylight came; and so
could not tell whether or not he had used his knife. His body must have
washed over the rail with a sea, and we hoped the invisible killer had
gone, too. But we hoped too much. With courage born of this hope a man
went forward to lower the masthead lights, prodding his way with the
pike pole.
"We watched him closely, the pole in one hand, his knife in the other.
But he went under at the fore rigging without even a yell, and the pole
went with him, while we could see, even at the distance and through the
disturbed water, that his arms were close to his sides, and that he
made no movement, except for the quick darting to and fro. After a few
moments, however, the pike pole floated to the surface, but the man's
body, drained, no doubt, of its buoyant fluids, remained on the deck.
"It was an hour later, with the pike pole for a feeler, before we dared
approach the body, hook on to it, and tow it aft. It resembled that of
the first victim, a skeleton clothed with skin, with the same look of
horror on the face. We buried it like the other, and held to the poop,
still drenched by the downpour of rain, hammered by the seas, and
choked by ashes from the sky.
"As the shower of ashes increased it became dark as twilight, and
though the three lights aloft burned out at about midday, I forbade a
man to go forward to lower them, contenting myself with a turpentine
flare lamp that I brought up from the lazaret, and filled, ready to
show if the lights of a craft came in view. Before the afternoon was
half gone it was dark as night, and down below, up to his waist in
water, the German professor was working away.
"He came up at supper time, humming cheerfully to himself, and
announced that he had replaced his camera lens with the rock crystal,
that the lantern, with its reflector and a blue spark in the focus,
made an admirable instrument for throwing the invisible rays on the
beast, and that he was all ready, except that his plates, which he had
resensitized--with some phosphorescent substance that I forget the name
of, now--must have time to dry. And then, he needed some light to work
by when the time came, he explained.
"'Also another victim,' I suggested bitterly; for he had not been on
deck when the last two men had died.
"'I hope not,' he said. 'When we can see, it may be possible to stir
him up by throwing things forward; then when he moves der water we can
take shots.'
"'Better devise some means of killing him,' I answered. 'Shooting won't
do, for water stops a bullet before it goes a foot into it.'
"'Der only way I can think of,' he responded, 'is for der next man--you
hear me all, you men--to stick your knife at the end of the
blood--where it collects in a lump. Dere is der creature's stomach, and
a vital spot.'
"'Remember this, boys,' I laughed, thinking of the last poor devil,
with his arms pinioned to his side. 'When you've lost enough blood to
see it in a lump, stab for it.'
"But my laugh was answered by a shriek. A man lashed with a turn of
rope around his waist to the stump of the mizzenmast, was writhing and
heaving on his back, while he struck with his knife, apparently at his
own body. With my own knife in my hand I sprang toward him, and felt
for what had seized him. It was something cold, and hard, and leathery,
close to his waist.
"Carefully gauging my stroke, I lunged with the knife, but I hardly
think it entered the invisible fin, or tail, or paw of the monster; but
it moved away from the screaming man, and the next moment I received a
blow in the face that sent me aft six feet, flat on my back. Then came
unconsciousness.
"When I recovered my senses the remnant of the crew were around me, but
the man was gone--dragged out of the bight of the rope that had held
him against the force of breaking seas, and down to the flooded main
deck, to die like the others. It was too dark to see, or do anything;
so, when I could speak I ordered all hands but one into the flooded
cabin where, in the upper berths and on the top of the table, were a
few dry spots.
"I filled and lighted a lantern, and gave it to the man on watch with
instructions to hang it to the stump of the mizzen and to call his
relief at the end of four hours. Then, with doors and windows closed,
we went to sleep, or tried to go to sleep. I succeeded first, I think,
for up to the last of consciousness I could hear the mutterings of the
men; when I awakened, they were all asleep, and the cabin clock, high
above the water, told me that, though it was still dark, it was six in
the morning.
"I went on deck; the lantern still burned at the stump of mizzenmast
but the lookout was gone. He had not lived long enough to be relieved,
as I learned by going below and finding that no one had been called.
"We were but six, now--one sailor and the bos'n, the cook and steward,
the professor and myself."
The old artist paused, while he refilled and lighted his pipe. I
noticed that the hand that held the match shook perceptibly, as though
the memories of that awful experience had affected his nerves. I know
that the recital had affected mine; for I joined him in a smoke, my
hands shaking also.
"Why," I asked, after a moment of silence, "if it was a deep-sea
creature, did it not die from the lesser pressure at the surface?"
"Why do not men die on the mountaintops?" he answered. "Or up in
balloons? The record is seven miles high, I think; but they lived. They
suffered from cold, and from lack of oxygen--that is, no matter how
fast, or deeply they breathed, they could not get enough. But the lack
of pressure did not trouble them; the human body can adjust itself.
"Conversely, however, an increase of pressure may be fatal. A man
dragged down more than one hundred and fifty feet may be crushed; and a
surface fish sent to the bottom of the sea may die from the pressure.
It is simple; it is like the difference between a weight lifted from us
and a weight added."
"Did this thing kill any more men?" I asked.
"All but the professor and myself, and it almost killed me. Look here."
He removed his cravat and collar, pulled down his shirt, and exposed
two livid scars about an inch in diameter, and two apart.
"I lost all the blood I could spare through those two holes," he said,
as he readjusted his apparel; "but I saved enough to keep me alive."
"Go on with the yarn," I asked. "I promise you I will not sleep
to-night."
"Perhaps I will not sleep myself," he answered, with a mournful smile.
"Some things should be forgotten, but as I have told you this much I
may as well finish, and be done with it.
"It was partly due to a sailor's love for tobacco, partly to our cold,
drenched condition. A sailor will starve quietly, but go crazy if
deprived of his smoke. This is so well known at sea that a skipper, who
will not hesitate to sail from port with rotten or insufficient food
for his men, will not dare take a chance without a full supply of
tobacco in the slop chest.
"But our slop chest was under water, and the tobacco utterly useless. I
did not use it at the time, but I fished some out for the others. It
did not do; it would not dry out to smoke, and the salt in it made it
unfit to chew. But the bos'n had an upper bunk in the forward house, in
which was a couple of pounds of navy plug, and he and the sailor talked
this over until their craving for a smoke overcame their fear of death.
"Of course, by this time, all discipline was ended, and all my commands
and entreaties went for nothing. They sharpened their knives, and,
agreeing to go forward, one on the starboard rail, the other on the
port, and each to come to the other's aid if called, they went up into
the darkness of ashes and rain. I opened my room window, which
overlooked the main deck, but could see nothing.
"Yet I could hear; I heard two screams for help, one after the
other--one from the starboard side, the other from the port, and knew
that they were caught. I closed the window, for nothing could be done.
What manner of thing it was that could grab two men so far apart nearly
at the same time was beyond all imagining.
"I talked to the steward and cook, but found small comfort. The first
was a Jap, the other a Chinaman, and they were the old-fashioned
kind--what they could not see with their eyes, they could not believe.
Both thought that all those men who had met death had either drowned or
died by falling. Neither understood--and, in fact, I did not
myself--the theories of Herr Smidt. He had stopped his cheerful humming
to himself now, and was very busy with his instruments.
"'This thing,' I said to him, 'must be able to see in the dark. It
certainly could not have heard those two men, over the noise of the
wind, sea, and rain.'
"'Why not?' he answered, as he puttered with his wires. 'Cats and owls
can see in the dark, und the accepted explanation is that by their
power of enlarging der pupils they admit more light to the retina. But
that explanation never satisfied me. You haf noticed, haf you not, that
a cat's eyes shine in der dark, but only when der cat is looking at
you?--that is, when it looks elsewhere you do not see der shiny eyes.'
"'Yes,' I answered, 'I have noticed that.'
"'A cat's eyes are searchlights, but they send forth a visible light,
such as is generated by fireflies, und some fish. Und dere are fish in
der upper tributaries of der Amazon which haf four eyes, der two upper
of which are searchlights, der two lower of which are organs of
percipience or vision. But visible light is not der only light. It is
possible that the creature out on deck generates the invisible light,
and can see by it.'
"'But what does it all amount to?' I asked impatiently.
"'I haf told you,' he answered calmly. 'Der creature may live in an
atmosphere of ultraviolet light, which I can generate mineself. When
mine plates dry, und it clears off so I can see what I am doing, I may
get a picture of it. When we know what it is, we may find means of
killing it.'
"'God grant that you succeed,' I answered fervently. 'It has killed
enough of us.'
"But, as I said, the thing killed all but the professor and myself. And
it came about through the other reason I mentioned--our cold, drenched
condition. If there is anything an Oriental loves above his ancestors,
it is his stomach; and the cold, canned food was palling upon us all.
We had a little light through the downpour of ashes and rain about
mid-day, and the steward and cook began talking about hot coffee.
"We had the turpentine torch for heating water, and some coffee, high
and dry on a shelf in the steward's storeroom, but not a pot, pan, or
cooking utensil of any kind in the cabin. So these two poor heathen,
against my expostulations--somewhat faint, I admit, for the thought of
hot coffee took away some of my common sense--went out on the deck and
waded forward, waist-deep in the water, muddy now, from the downfall of
ashes.
"I could see them as they entered the galley to get the coffeepot, but,
though I stared from my window until the blackness closed down, I did
not see them come out. Nor did I hear even a squeal. The thing must
have been in the galley.
"Night came on, and, with its coming, the wind and rain ceased, though
there was still a slight shower of ashes. But this ended toward
midnight, and I could see stars overhead and a clear horizon. Sleep, in
my nervous, overwrought condition, was impossible; but the professor,
after the bright idea of using the turpentine torch to dry out his
plates, had gone to his fairly dry berth, after announcing his
readiness to take snapshots about the deck in the morning.
"But I roused him long before morning. I roused him when I saw through
my window the masthead and two side lights of a steamer approaching
from the starboard, still about a mile away. I had not dared to go up
and rig that lantern at the mizzen stump; but now I nerved myself to go
up with the torch, the professor following with his instruments.
"'You cold-blooded crank,' I said to him, as I waved the torch. 'I
admire your devotion to science, but are you waiting for that thing to
get me?'
"He did not answer, but rigged his apparatus on the top of the cabin.
He had a Wimshurst machine--to generate a blue spark, you know--and
this he had attached to the big deck light, from which he had removed
the opaque glass. Then he had his camera, with its rock-crystal lens.
"He trained both forward, and waited, while I waved the torch, standing
near the stump with a turn of rope around me for safety's sake in case
the thing seized me; and to this idea I added the foolish hope, aroused
by the professor's theories, that the blinding light of the torch would
frighten the thing away from me as it does wild animals.
"But in this last I was mistaken. No sooner was there an answering
blast of a steam whistle, indicating that the steamer had seen the
torch, than something cold, wet, leathery, and slimy slipped around my
neck. I dropped the torch, and drew my knife, while I heard the whir of
the static machine as the professor turned it.
"'Use your knife, mine friend,' he called. 'Use your knife, und reach
for any blood what you see.'
"I knew better than to call for help, and I had little chance to use
the knife. Still, I managed to keep my right hand, in which I held it,
free, while that cold, leathery thing slipped farther around my neck
and waist. I struck as I could, but could make no impression; and soon
I felt another stricture around my legs, which brought me on my back.
"Still another belt encircled me, and, though I had come up warmly clad
in woolen shirts and monkey jacket, I felt these garments being torn
away from me. Then I was dragged forward, but the turn of rope had
slipped down toward my waist, and I was merely bent double.
"And all the time that German was whirling his machine, and shouting to
strike for any blood I saw. But I saw none. I felt it going, however.
Two spots on my chest began to smart, then burn as though hot irons
were piercing me. Frantically I struck, right and left, sometimes at
the coils encircling me, again in the air. Then all became dark.
* * * * *
"I awakened in a stateroom berth, too weak to lift my hands, with the
taste of brandy in my mouth and the professor standing over me with a
bottle in his hand.
"'Ach, it is well,' he said. 'You will recover. You haf merely lost
blood, but you did the right thing. You struck with your knife at the
blood, and you killed the creature. I was right. Heart, brain, und all
vital parts were in der stomach.'
"'Where are we now?' I asked, for I did not recognize the room.
"'On board der steamer. When you got on your feet und staggered aft, I
knew you had killed him, and gave you my assistance. But you fainted
away. Then we were taken off. Und I haf two or three beautiful
negatives, which I am printing. They will be a glorious contribution to
der scientific world.'
"I was glad that I was alive, yet not alive enough to ask any more
questions. But next day he showed me the photographs he had printed."
"In Heaven's name, what was it?" I asked excitedly, as the old artist
paused to empty and refill his pipe.
"Nothing but a giant squid, or octopus. Except that it was bigger than
any ever seen before, and invisible to the eye, of course. Did you ever
read Hugo's terrible story of Gilliat's fight with a squid?"